Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections, which have typically appeared in the pages of Baseball Think Factory, are being released at FanGraphs this year. Below are the projections for the Cincinnati Reds. Szymborski can be found on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
Something of which people never tire is to learn that there is both good news and also that there’s bad news. The bad news, in the case of the Cincinnati Reds, appears to be — at least so far as Dan Szymborski’s finely calibrated ZiPS projection system is concerned — appears to be that newly acquired Shin-Soo Choo is probably a pretty bad defensive center fielder. The good news, though, is that he’s still expected to be worth about three wins in 2013 — i.e. more than he produced in either 2011 or -12.

Otherwise, of some note — beyond the simple fact that the club’s offense is generally talented — is the not particularly optimistic projection for 34-year-old Ryan Ludwick, whom the Reds signed to a two-year, $15 million contract this offseason. In the present market, that’s not a horrible deal for a starting outfielder; however, Cincinnati will be looking to compete for the NL Central title this season, and will want at least average production from the position.

Pitchers
In a display of uncommon durability, five starters — Bronson Arroyo, Homer Bailey, Johnny Cueto, Mat Latos, and Mike Leake — made a combined 161 starts for Cincinnati in 2012. Accordingly, ZiPS — which is rather conservative, generally, in this regard — projects two Reds pitchers (Cueto and Latos) to throw at least 190 innings, and another three (Arroyo, Bailey, and Leake) to cross the 160-inning threshold. The last of those (Leake) is unlikely to reach the mark in reality, however: it is generally understood that Aroldis Chapman, who was dominant in relief in 2012, will make the transition to the rotation this season.

Replacing Chapman at the back end of the Reds’ bullpen in 2013 will be Jonathan Broxton, whom the Reds signed to a three-year, $21 million deal at the end of November. His projection on a per-inning basis is encouraging, and there’s reason to believe that the addition of a cut fastball (about which, of course, ZiPS wouldn’t have any idea) will help him preserve the gains he exhibited after arriving in Cincinnati. Still, it’s also reasonable to wonder why a team would commit so substantially to a pitcher who, just the year before, was able only to find a one-year and $4 million contract with the Royals.

Bench/Prospects
Outfield prospect Billy Hamilton has mostly one tool (speed), but ZiPS indicates that he probably has enough of that one tool at this point so’s to make him something like a league-average player. Despite some offensive difficulties following a May promotion to Double-A last season, David Vidal also receives a relatively optimistic projection — relative to his age, if nothing else. Among pitchers, left-hander Tony Cingrani‘s development bears watching. He was among the best starters last year at both High- and Double-A. His role for 2013 is uncertain, although ZiPS indicates he might be capable of throwing league-average innings as a starter right now.

Depth Chart
Here’s a rough depth chart for the Reds, with rounded projected WAR totals for each player (click to embiggen):

Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2012. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams unless Dan has made a mistake. This is very possible as a lot of minor-league signings are generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS is projecting based on the AL having a 4.09 ERA and the NL having a 3.92 ERA.

Players that are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information and a computer isn’t what should be projecting the injury status of, for example, a pitcher with Tommy John surgery.

Regarding ERA+ vs. ERA- (and FIP+ vs. FIP-) and the differences therein: as Patriot notes here, they are not simply mirror images of each other. Writes Patriot: “ERA+ does not tell you that a pitcher’s ERA was X% less or more than the league’s ERA. It tells you that the league’s ERA was X% less or more than the pitcher’s ERA.”

(This is a reply to Dan, but there’s no “Reply” button under his post)

I just looked at Score’s BBRef page, and I can’t believe that’s Chapman’s #1 comp. Starting in his age-25 season (Chapman this coming season will be 25) Score was no longer any good – 86 ERA+, 1.55 WHIP, 1.1 k/bb.

If it’s based on his age-24 season, Score was already an established starter, but that was the season he was hit and only pitched 36 innings (and Chapman doubled that last season). If it’s based on career through 24, that doesn’t make sense either, as Score already had 70 starts and 512 IP before his age-25 season (compared to only 135 IP for Chapman).

Honestly, that’s what I expect from Chapman and I’d take it. Rather than getting shutdown like Strasburg, they can move him back to the bullpen for the playoffs, where he with fortify what should already be a pretty decent relief corps.

The problem with Dusty isn’t the 120+ pitch counts, its the games when he leaves a kid in to throw 35+ pitches in the 2nd inning. The tires out, his mechanics go out the window, and he puts undue stress on his arm, but old DB doesn’t want to call a long reliever for some random April game…

That’s a 100+ win team. Bailey’s projection is too low. He’s entering his prime and has improved in each of the past two seasons. I don’t see why he would take a step back from his 2012 numbers. He is one of my favorite fantasy pickups this year as I see him competing with cueto and latos for best of the staff. I see Votto hitting 25-35 points higher than his 300 avg projection. He hit 337 with a bum knee last year.

100 wins? My back of the envelope WAR math has them around 91. Still a very good projection coming from ZiPS. As for Bailey, ZiPS is projecting him for a lower FIP than he’s posted any year but 2010. I don’t think you can really quibble with that. I agree with you on Votto, but ZiPS is notoriously conservative on batting averages. I think Votto may be the first .300 projection of the year.

Your back of the envelope calculation is correct based on 45 for replacement level and 46 for the depth chart (Note: Zym says that this calculation is invalid as a team projection.)
I think the only higher one in the NL so far was Washington with 96.

Looking at BA title qualifiers, ZiPS projected, based on the .300 BA ODDIBE odds, that on average, that 24 of them would .300 hitters on average, 26 did.

The reasons ZiPS projects so few .300 *mean* projections is that league BAs have dropped considerably, from .269 in 2006 to .268, .264, .262, .257, and in the last 2 years, .255. 2011-2012 (and ZiPS presumes, 2013) is a much worse BA environment than all average environment that all career .300 hitters have had.

I certainly didn’t mean to offend your system Dan. I am a very big fan of ZiPS. Thank you for the primer though. When viewing ZiPS projections I must constantly remind myself to think probabilistically. Just as a poker player who plays all night would be lucky if he never took a single bad beat (despite having favorable odds in each of his particular hands), a projection system such as ZiPS would be “surprised” if only 4 players topped .300 despite ostensibly predicting it.

Well, yes and no. The depth chart summation is indeed 46 WAR. However, when you add up the individual position players and individual rotation pieces, you get 40 rather than 42 wins, due to so many more values being rounded up, rather than down.

So, 89 as opposed to 91 (by this methodology, anyway). If they win more than 90, I’d be surprised. More than 92-or-3, I’d be shocked. Last year, the Reds were the “secret Orioles” of the N.L., as they won a hugely disproportionate number of close games (1 or 2 runs), and so vastly exceeded their 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-order win totals.

1st order 90 wins in 2012
2nd order 88 wins
3rd order 86 wins

Jocketty has been properly aggressive in his off-season moves, and there’s no way this team will backslide, a la 2011. But Chapman and Choo are dicerolls, and they’d both have to turn out almost perfectly (like combining for double-digit WAR) for this team to equal last year’s W/L record, much less win 100 games.

Bailey’s ERA last year was more luck based than peripheral based so ZIPS is just assuming he pitches to the peripherals. If you buy into his 2nd half surge I could see him being a really good pitcher but it is pretty hard for a computer to just assume that is a new level given how few innings it was in.

It’s pretty unbelievable that projecting a .338 BABIP for Votto is pessimistic. In fact, it’s pretty unlikely to be that low, as it’s only dropped below .340 once in his 5-year career. Once! That man is good at baseball.

If you’re (1) a below average hitter in the previous season, (2) an average hitter in the season before that and (3) born before 1980, a good projection system is probably going to see the previous season as flukey rather than as a real improvement. So, he comes out the average of his last three seasons.

He’s been around a league average outfielder for a few years now… just happened to have a great second half, aided by a BABIP far about what he’s had over the last 2 or 3 seasons before that. It’s even actually a pretty similar projection to BJ’s! lol

This makes sense, unless there is a good explanation for your “flukey” season. In Ludwick’s case there is. Ludwick changed his approach when he was in pitcher-friendly San Diego leading to his mid-career struggles at the plate. When he returned to a hitter-friendly park he was able to find the mojo that he lost when he left St. Louis. As the season progressed he found more and more of that mojo.

I don’t expect a 1.000 OPS season from Ludwick in 2013, but he is also not a league-average hitter at this point in his career. I think a realistic projection is something between .850-.900 in 2013.

KJ, a good explanation would be one that was independent from the results, not one cobbled together ex post facto based on the results. If you have evidence *before* his huge 6 week run that his 4 *year* mojo disappearance was magically going to end, that would be something.

(and he didn’t “get better” as the season went, he sucked for a few months, had an amazing 6-8 weeks, and then sucked again)

If ZiPS spat out an .850-.900 OPS as a *mean projection* for Ryan Ludwick based on the facts in evidence, I would have deleted ZiPS and started over from scratch.

It wasn’t a 6-week run, more like a 18-week run. He had a bad April/March, got a little better in May and then was an allstar-caliber player from June through the rest of the regular season and through the playoffs when he hit 3 HRs and batted .333. I understand that ZIPS doesnt factor in the impact making a move to a different home ballpark, but I just don’t see any way that Ludwick OPS’es less than .800 OPS.

If Ludwick meets that projection I wouldn’t be disappointed. He’s there to provide a little power.

The real key to this team is that there are a lot of solid players and not many major weakpoints so long as health holds. Even with regression in terms of IP by the starters they have Cingriani to be a capable reinforcement.

Rickie Weeks looks like a HOF player for months at a time too, he still ends up being Rickie Weeks by the end of the season. Trying to assume a lot from a small sample is dangerous and would lead to a really bad projection system.

The Mesoraco to Charles Johnson comp is amusing. Could not be more different behind the dish and from what the scouting reports said up to last year could not be more different when at the plate either. Maybe the sum is an equally valuable player? Just very different routes of acheiving said value?

When you combine minor league translations (neutral league, neutral park), ZiPS’ best guess for Devin Mesoraco’s currentl level of offensive ability at this minute at 237/310/399. The best guess for Johnson after 1996 was 234/312/409. There’s a lot more in it, but comps will tend to be pretty close BA/OBP/SLG wise.

Why don’t you guys do 95% confidence intervals rather than the mean projection? Do people get more confused than they are by the mean projections since your average sports fan doesn’t understand a normal distribution?

Additionally, is there anywhere I could see your confidence intervals?

I think the projection is a little light for Frazier. Not sure I like using minor league historical stats for projecting future MLB performance, especially for someone like Frazier who spent the minors roaming from position to position. I think a 2.7 WAR average is much more in line with what folks should expect, with the potential of a 4.0 if things break right.

Simply put, it’s much less accurate if your ignore minor league data. I’ve encountered this argument since the moment I started doing basic projections in the late 90s, for example, with Chris Singleton. Most sophomore slumps are, in fact, simply a player that was performing at a higher-than-expected level regressing to a more typical place in the career patterns.

I’m mainly concerned with the defensive projection. I also wonder if the ZIPS projection is weighing his performance at 1B and the OF too heavily, when it is generally assumed that he will spend most of his time at 3B (his best position IMO) next season.

Let’s not forget that he split time between four positions last year, but should be able to concentrate on 3B this season. He passes my eye test for the position, especially when one compares him to rest of the ineptness at 3B found across the league.

Furthermore, I have to wonder why Broxton is only projected to throw 48 IP, when he should clearly set for 60-80 IP. He’s fully recovered from his injury.

Between Frazier and Broxton, I think another 2 WAR is a conservative addition to the overall projection.

It’s closer than it looks – Coors is a rough park for strikeouts while Petco is very good (Great American about average). Add in that the Thomson years being compared to also include his final year in the minor (when it still looked like he’d be a better strikeout pitcher than he turned out to be) and NL average K/9 is nearly an entire strikeout a game higher than the mid-late 90s and the disparity gets trimmed down.